"Chess is very simple. He goes there, I go here. I go there, he goes here."

Saturday, December 03, 2011

Occupy Sydney Grammar

So these two boys are getting the boot for doing what they love and what they're good at. In the spirit of the times, there's only one thing to do.

Occupy Sydney Grammar. And tweet #occupysydneygrammar.

Kevin Willathgamuwa, 8, and his brother Rowan, 9, have also been excluded from Grammar's chess team competing in the Australian Schools Teams Championships at Knox Grammar this weekend, despite missing only one day of the long competition. The boys were away from school for 10 days. In Brazil, Kevin placed 10th out of 90 boys in the under 8s, and Rowan won half his matches. The Australian grand master, Ian Rogers, who was at the competition, said Kevin was clearly the best player of his age in Australia.

6 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Terrible school. Unfortunately, Sydney has more private schools like this. The primary school my girl attend (a famous indepentent girl school in upper north shore) has just announced its DUX last Friday ... Surprise,Surprise - A DUX has fair academic result but speak fluent foul language. This is the quality of our private schools today ... The boys should leave the Sydney Grammar. They are so bright and they have plenty of choices ... Good Luck

If a school makes it's policies clear when you enroll, how can you complain later?

This school enforces strict attendance rules on everyone, and has an academic focus. Many parents appreciate this and that's why it's so difficult to get into.

If you are looking for a school which focuses more on extra-curricular achievements, choose a different school. Don't just badmouth a school because it refused to change to suit you. This is in fact an excellent school, but did not suit that lifestyle of these particular students. It was pretty stupid of the parents to think they could just do whatever they wanted, when it was made very clear at the start what the policies were. I guess some people think they are above the rules.

Anyway, these kids are lovely and very talented, so I'm sure they will do well in their new school. I just hope their parents put a bit more thought into where they will go next year.

Perhaps you should get some perspective on the issue? I know for a fact that just this year, two boys were allowed to go to England during their HSC Trials for the Junior World Rowing Championships. Several others also competed in the Australian and International Olympiad competitions who were all congratulated and praised.

I find it extremely hard to believe that the school did not grant leave to two boys in the last few weeks of the year in Year 3 or so.

I'm sure there are other factors to this dismissal. Perhaps the parents did not ask for leave or something similar.